Laser printer technology including the associated toner cartridges is a fast growing, highly competitive industry that strives for continuous improvements related to the performance of cartridges and printers. Some examples of print characteristics that manufacturers are continuously trying to improve include print quality, print resolution, print speed, cost and versatility of equipment, such as to enable printing, copying and photographing. Additionally original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) continuously innovate in regard to the manner in which toner is stored in toner cartridges. In recent times some OEMs have developed toner cartridges that are included with the laser printer as sold originally, with such cartridges generally referred to as “starter” cartridges. Typically such starter cartridges include a volume of toner that is less than the volume of toner provided in replacement cartridges.
With a new model printer and cartridge, the OEM may design the starter cartridge to have a physically smaller toner reservoir than a standard cartridge, such that the empty starter cartridges have limited value to cartridge refillers, and competition from refilled cartridges is consequently reduced or delayed.
One approach to increasing the capacity of a toner cartridge is to provide new plastic toner hopper shells to replace the OEM toner hopper shells. The imaging components normally associated with the toner hopper are then moved from the original toner hopper shells to the new shells. A significant drawback of this approach is that the replacement shells may not perfectly replicate the physical dimensions and other characteristics of the OEM shells, and the printing components may thus be slightly misaligned or not interact properly with other mechanisms in the printer.
Also, as is well known, toner cartridges are typically manufactured with automated or semi-automated processes. Such processes typically include use of manufacturing techniques that require specific structural features on or in the cartridge that in turn facilitate the manufacturing process but do not play any role in the operation of the end use of the cartridge in a laser printer. For example, original equipment manufactured toner cartridges typically have structures that facilitate the picking up and moving or placing a cartridge shell, housing or member from one location to another location during the manufacturing process. This process is known as “pick and place” and these structures exist solely or primarily to enable manufacturing equipment, such as robots to pick and place the cartridge housing or member from one location to another location.